


The Pawn

by brasspetal



Category: Mr. Robot (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Depression, Developing Relationship, M/M, Mental Instability, Post-Canon, Suicidal Ideation, Suicidal Thoughts, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-11-06 12:46:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11036472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brasspetal/pseuds/brasspetal
Summary: A god and his devotee change the world entire.





	1. Divinity

**Author's Note:**

> I've decided to continue this! I hope you enjoy what I have planned :) It will be a dark fic.

The wind was his supplication.

It would take him up, far, far into the pitch.

He would spread his arms wide, his fingers loose. They were his wings; his reasons. They could plummet him into forever. There was a manic smile forming on his lips. It pained him, the way it stretched his mouth.

_So much depends upon…_

He was going to laugh but he wouldn’t be able to hear it. No one would. Especially not _him_.

_…A red wheelbarrow_

Tyrell had a relationship with roofs. They were where he set himself and all his overgrown achievements. If he looked behind him, would he see the future buried in the concrete?

He hears the gunshot, the gunshot that was still rattling around in his skull and he screams. He lets it tear from his throat.

_Elliot._

_Let me show you._

Mount Olympus this was not, he was a false God.

Tyrell opened his eyes to the night and his throat burned. Elliot’s hands were held out palms up and he gave him his blood.

The look on his face. The _knowing_.

Elliot would never forgive Tyrell. He knew this. _He knew it_.

Tyrell was laughing, until the high-pitched grief crescendoed into violent sobs. He only did what he was told, he only wanted to finish what they started. His echo was deranged.

This was theirs. The world was theirs. Why couldn’t they just take it? He’d set it aflame if it’d make Elliot see him. He would light a match in every corner. He’d take Elliot’s bloodied hands as he lies there on the cold floor and press them to his own face.

Elliot would look at him, wouldn’t he? He’d have to.

Tyrell’s shoes teetered on the edge of the roof and below him was nothing. This was his reward? To fall back down to the very bottom. The bottom he scratched, crawled and killed to get away from.

Elliot’s face was there in that deep dark of the below.

“I did it! I did everything you asked me to!” He yelled and his voice evaporated into the horizon of the dark buildings. The buildings were his faceless audience members.  They wanted to applaud his ineptitude like all the rest. They wanted to tell him that he failed _him_.

He was going to tear out his hair if he kept cradling his skull the way he did.

“Tell me what to do. What do you want me to do?!” He asks the Elliot that rests in his mind.

Did he want him to jump? Because he would. Would that balance the board out?

Like all things though, his thoughts don’t give him solace. The dark below gives way to traffic lights and the sound comes rushing back to his ears.

The fact remains, dropping like a stone between his rib cage. He never was a God, but a mere devotee, a pawn, a cog in the wheel.

For the first time in his miserable life, Tyrell was accepting to that.

He’d take the blood given to him and that personal anguish and give it all to Elliot.

Tyrell knew behind that curtain, there was a spark. That spark he was going to kindle until his God came back to him.

He steps back from the ledge. The wind was a chilled reprieve. His future was a pit and it crumbles away when he walks towards the door.    

There was a panicked fury in his heart and he thinks that’s what devotion is. He wanted to be suffocated by it; to succumb to it. He’s going to strangle the roots of the Earth to get back into _his_ favor once again. He would show him. He was ready.

He was smiling now, so wide that it hurt his face but it felt like coming home.


	2. In Every Corner

_Funerals. They’re perpetually awkward. Most people can’t handle someone who is grieving. The cycle of condolences loops and they think that’s enough, they’ve done their part. ‘I’m sorry.’ What more was there to say?_

Elliot sits in a dusty pew alone, looking towards an empty casket. _His casket?_ The church towers over him; foreboding.

There’s an echo of dripping water and he flinches every time it falls. It’s loud in the quiet. 

_Was this his funeral? No. Couldn’t be. Not yet._

He turns around towards the doors that opened up to the foyer and confusion riddled his features.

_He remembered….what did he remember?_

He stands then and walks to the aisle. The carpet is red, a dark crimson and it hurt his eyes. He has to blink against it. The scene shifts, cracks and distorts.

He’s spilling, like a full water glass.

_'I’m sorry, kiddo’_

There’s static, somewhere, like someone left a TV on. His hands were wet, wet with the crimson from the rug. It was him. He was staining the floor.  The blood was pouring out of his abdomen and he couldn’t stop it.

_Mr. Robot. He did this._

Elliot falls to the floor and the ceiling stretches into a void above him.

_Tyrell pulled the trigger. Tyrell. He was real. He wasn’t a delusion. He wasn’t another version of the program._

He sees the faded face of Mr. Robot standing above him, looking down. He shakes his head at Elliot like he’s disappointed. The darkness was alive above him, eating away the room. There wasn’t much time now.

_Here we go. The release. The pain. The scream._

He’s breathing in such a small space. His heartbeat is silent. He didn’t have much to lose. _Did he?_

He watches Mr. Robot fade completely again and he reaches his hand out across the carpet. Someone takes it, holds it and squeezes it once.

_He’s alive._

The world blinks and he’s surrounded in the deep dark. _Is this what falling feels like?_ He feels the pressure of the hand on his squeeze tighter.

“Elliot…can you hear me?”

He jolts awake on a cough, the darkness didn’t lessen. It’s there in the room with him, come to life. Angela is standing above him and a smile grows wider on her face. It’s like something else is wearing her face.

“You may be confused.” She says it slowly and deliberately.

“What the fuck am I?” Elliot blanches and corrects, “Wh-Where the fuck am I?”

He can see the traces of smoke behind Angela, floating above the room like a creature.

_White Rose._

“What’s happening?!” He questions. His heart is quickening and his abdomen throbs in agony.  He lets out a whimper and tries to set his hand to the wound but he can’t.  His arms and feet were bound to the uncomfortable bed. He fights against his restraints, but the pain from his wound is too much. He can’t move.  

“WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!” Elliot yells and Angela holds up her hand, still wearing that eerie stretched smile.

_Was this real? This can’t be real? He’s dreaming. He’s dying. He’s still in that warehouse. This was a trick._

“This is a trick.” He says.

“Calm down, Elliot. You’ll be fine. I promise.” She says and tries to soothe.

He squints at her and looks back to the cloud of smoke accumulating in the dark above. Angela looked like an automaton.

“Where is Tyrell?” Elliot asks without accord.

_Tyrell who was crying, who was sobbing over him. Tyrell who shot him, who did what he told him to. What Mr. Robot wanted._

_Sorry, Kiddo_

“He’s fine. I think you need to rest, Elliot.” Faux-Angela says and this time she smiles with her teeth.

He tilts his head at her, his eyes widening. “You aren’t her.”

“Who?”

“Angela…where the fuck am I?” He whispers in a rush.

“I think you need to rest and then we can talk, okay?” She replies and blinks at him. He thinks that’s the first time she’s blinked.

He fights against his restraints and she disappears into the darkness. A man in a red dragon mask approaches him. He stabs his arm violently with a needle. He didn’t have time to think. The world is disappearing again. _That’s fine. All fine._ He didn’t like this one anyway.

He remembers crawling on the concrete. Or was that a dream? He remembered his bloodied hand reaching out to something unattainable. _What was he reaching for?_

There’s a click and then a gunshot. Time rewinds and all the blood swishes back inside his abdomen. He’s staring at the devastated face of Tyrell and the realization that dawned there.

He fires.

Elliot remembered feeling a mixture of relief and joy when the bullet slammed into him. Tyrell was real and he was finally going to be released from this nightmare. No more Mr. Robot. No more screaming. _No more._

The pencil slips and he draws a line, tearing open his journal.  It’s eviscerated.

_Control…_

He reaches out across the cold concrete and a hand gently meets him there. It was Tyrell’s. How long had he watched him die?

_Is an illusion._

He remembered the anguish but he also remembered smiling. He smiled as Tyrell sobbed, tearing at his hair, punishing himself.

Mr. Robot had won but what did he expect? He’s always one step ahead.

\--

A bright light sears through his eyelids and he has to open them to blink away the spots. He can’t shield his face. His arms and legs were still tightly restrained.

 “Elliot…” Angela’s smooth voice comes from beside him.

He turns quickly, wild-eyed and unfocused. He could see her shadowed form. The light in the room is too bright.

“What’s happening?” He questions.

“Tyrell called me and we are taking care of you now. You don’t need to worry.” She says, calm.

“Why are you here?” Elliot blinks and then shuts his eyes tight against the light. It’s burning, blinding.

“Can I talk to him?” She tilts her head, curiously.

“Who?” Elliot asks but he knows who, doesn’t he? He knows.

“The one behind the curtain.” She says cryptically and Elliot pulls his arm against the restraints. “Can I talk to him?”

“No.”

“Elliot…we are trying to help you. I know it isn’t easy waking up to this and soon you won’t have to be restrained. I promise.”

Promise. A _promise_. Mr. Robot promised him. He promised him everything and gave him a bullet instead.  

“He’s not here anymore.” Elliot lies. He’s always here even when he can’t feel him. He’s behind everything and in every corner of every room. He’s his inescapable terror.

“Please, the sooner we talk to him the better. Everything will be okay.” She says it like a canned response and she smiles again. That _smile_.

Elliot wants to scream, so he does. He screams and screams until the bright light switches off and there is nothing but that dark silence. Blissful and unaware.   


	3. Devoured

Tyrell watched his suit burn in a barrel fire. He stood bare beneath the stars like some creature who played by the moon’s rules. The only rules that Tyrell Wellick set for himself were what would lead him back into Elliot’s favor. That’s all that mattered. All that would _ever_ matter. Otherwise what is this all for? What is his purpose?

He’s going to scream again if he didn’t put his thoughts to rest. He dresses in jeans, a t-shirt and a baseball cap. He looked like a cheap knock off of a tourist. Those little ants that scurry in and out of the city not really seeing. He had to be one of them. He’s pretended his whole life. He practices his smile in the mirror in the driver’s side of his car. Not too big, not too confident. He had to smile just enough but not stretch his face into his usual manic grin. He can’t help himself sometimes. He always felt like laughing. Some people would say it’s a nervous tick but he thinks he just finds the world amusing. He laughs now, in the silent dark of the car. He laughs so much he starts crying again. He thinks of the bullet, the gun, the shot. Tyrell wanted to be painted in that blood on the concrete floor of the warehouse. He thinks it’s still there.

He hits the steering wheel, accidentally honking the horn. It startles a homeless man nearby who hides away further into the dark.

He had so much to do and so little time. He had to see him. He had to explain to him that he will be worthy.

He backs out onto the gravel road and heads back into the city, which is waiting to devour him whole. Tyrell thinks that it would be a good way to go; to be devoured by what you love. 

The Dark Army had sent him a message to meet with a contact at a dentist office around noon. Always noon, when the sun had nowhere to hide. Tyrell finds the parking lot to the small shopping center where the dentist office resides and sits in the dark. It’s still night and he had about twelve hours to kill. He’s a little early but he’s always been early. Even when he was little, he’d show up an hour early to a birthday party before anyone else would. He’d always have to wait on the ones that were late. He hated how careless they were, all those likeminded ten year old’s not even remotely as efficient as him. It was beside the point that he was never invited. He’d just show up sometimes. He remembers taking his turn (which wasn’t his turn) with a piñata once. He had beaten every single piece of candy out of it. They were all his. He had earned them. Those kids that came crawling towards his candy pile would get swung at, until they called someone to take him home. He didn’t get to keep the candy.

“Elliot…I’m sorry.” He says to the silence. “I was doing what I was told.”

He takes a short breath and lifts his baseball cap to push back his hair which was falling forward. He smiles a little at his reflection in the dark car window. “I’ll be forgiven.”

He slipped his sunglasses on when he sees a woman pushing a cart across the parking lot. He knows it must look pretty fucking stupid to be wearing sunglasses in the pitch dark but isn’t that what shady characters do? They sit in their cars with the lights off, breathing in the night with their sunglasses on. He couldn’t chance being recognized. Not when he’s so close to seeing Elliot.

“I’m sorry.” He says and the woman with the cart eyes him warily.

Once the sun peeks up from the horizon, Tyrell is staring lost in a trance at the beginnings of light forming at the front of the dentist office.

Time ticks and cars begin to fill the small parking lot. The people that get out of their average cars don’t pay attention to him, they don’t even see him. It’s like he’s invisible. His grip tightens on the steering wheel and he notices a donut shop open up not far from the dentist office.

He steps out of the car stretching his long legs and fixes his hair beneath his hat again.  His sunglasses were snuggly in place. He could thicken up his accent and play the ‘just visiting’ card but he decides on silence.

A tiny bell dings at his entrance and a short portly man waits for him to order. He appears impatient and even more irritated when he realizes that Tyrell didn’t even want a donut. He just wanted coffee.

He left the shop with the burning styrofoam cup in his hand. He takes a small sip and wrinkles his nose in disgust before tossing the liquid across the parking lot and leaves the styrofoam cup sitting on top of a full trashcan.

He goes back to his car and sits in the passenger’s side this time. He waits like he’s waiting for Elliot to appear and hop in the driver’s side. Where would they go? He can’t even fathom it.

By 10AM, there’s two men fighting on the sidewalk by a beat-up motorcycle. They take swings at one another and Tyrell watched, chewing on his cheek. The police arrive not long after it started to break it up and Tyrell has to lay low in his car, sinking down into the seat. He’s not very good at being on the run.

When noon finally rolls around and the sun is beating down on the parking lot, he’s already at the door. He pushes his way inside, not bothering to hold the door open for an older woman who scoffs at him.

He asks for Dr. Marlow and waits in the waiting room with the other awkward nervous patients. He keeps his face hidden behind a ‘Better Homes and Gardens’ magazine. He’s never been one for the white picket fence aspect of living. He prefers the coldness of modern design, doesn’t leave much room for anything but stark indifference. Bored with the horrendous reading material he keeps his head down towards his phone. His burner phone. He had to crush his old one and leave it in the fire.

“Bert Eames.” A voice calls and he stands up proudly. It was the fake name they told him to give at the front. Even if he didn’t really look like a Bert. He wasn’t going to complain if he got him to Elliot.

He follows the woman with braided dark hair to a separate blank white door and she opens it for him. He steps inside and she shuts it behind him, sucking the noise out with her exit. The room is just like any other examination room. It even had the dental chair. There are posters of smiling happy people crowding the walls and it makes his face twitch.

It wasn’t long after that Dr. Marlow slips inside. He’s older with a gray beard and black rimmed glasses. He hands Tyrell a piece of folded paper.

“Do I get to see him?” Tyrell asks.

“No.” The man replies and Tyrell’s face falls. Something inside him cracks apart, leaving jagged edges in his chest.

“Is he…he’s okay?!” 

“Do what’s asked of you, no more and no less.” The man replies. Tyrell feels like he's losing the last bit of resolve he has left. 

“I need to see him…please. I need to talk to him.” 

“No.” The man says sternly. “Do what you’re told.”

“I DID what I’m told. What he told me to do. Does he know that? Can you tell him that?”

“Not today.” The man replies and he looks fed up with Tyrell already. Tyrell crushes the piece of paper into his fist.

“I waited for hours in that fucking parking lot to see him, they said I could see him.”

“Not. Today.” The man articulates, waving his hand towards the door.

“IS he here?” Tyrell’s eyes widen. They're hiding Elliot from him. 

“He’s not here and for the last time, get out or I’m going to have you removed.” The man reaches for the door knob. It squeaks when he starts to turn it.

“When can I see him?” Tyrell prods.

“I don’t make that decision.”

“Who does?”

“GET OUT!” The man yells.

Tyrell felt the rage. That quiet bubbling of fury just below the surface. He lashes out, gripping onto the man’s shirt collar.

“IS HE HERE?!” Tyrell screams. The man rips himself out of his grip and falls to the floor. Tyrell flings the door open, scaring a patient passing by. 

“Is he here?” He asks a dental assistant who disappears into the next room. They’re supposed to herald the new world together. _This_ wasn’t supposed to happen.

Tyrell stalks down the hallway to the waiting room and once inside, all the rage comes tumbling out of his throat into a scream. It startles the awkward patients at first but then when he continues, they scramble, running for the exit, terrified.   

Blessedly alone now in the waiting room, he opens up the piece of paper, smoothing it out with his palms. Written in scribbled pen is a name: _Jo Lloyd._

The name meant nothing to him. It’s another goose chase. Another puzzle to keep him occupied. Tyrell is many things but he isn’t stupid. He knows when he’s been given the run around. He tears up the paper viciously. He would find Elliot, even if he had to crawl on hands and knees in the mud, in the blood to get there.

This is _their_ victory.


End file.
